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CONTRACT K-1920-72: A CONTRACT BY AND BETWEEN THE CITY OF NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, AND PAYMENTUS CORPORATION TO PROVIDE MERCHANT PROCESSING OF UTILITY BILL PAYMENTS FOR THE CITY OF NORMAN UTILITY BILLING APPLICATION.
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BACKGROUND: In October of 2018 the City of Norman Information Technology and Finance Department staffs starting looking at integrated vendors that could provide solutions with the upcoming Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) computer applications. Integrated options were researched, to ensure the best processes for payment reconciliation and money handling would be afforded to our customers and staff. The utility billing, building permit and licensing applications referenced Paymentus Corporation and Invoice Cloud as preferred, integrated vendors to research.
DISCUSSION: The City’s Information Technology Department worked with Finance and two proposals for integrated solutions were presented for review. During the time of this review, the City’s present software provider for online and telephone payment processing experienced multiple security breaches, which negatively impacted customers in other municipalities. Attacks started against agencies running Click2Gov software back in 2018. The City had already awarded a contract for a replacement utility billing application and is in the process of implementing that software. Due to these security incidents, the Information Technology staff recommend to move the online and telephone payment processes immediately away from the current software provider to properly secure customer information. The Finance Department coordinated calls with our present merchant services provider. It was determined that they do not presently have an integrated solution with the recommended new merchant processing software. They would release the City of Norman of any contractual obligations for merchant processing to be able to address these critical security concerns and timeline for the utility billing software deployment.
After interviews with the each of the companies and questions to organizations they had each worked with, staff agreed unanimously with the approach Paymentus Corporation provided in their proposal. A comparison of the two proposals is attached to this item.
Merchant processing fees average around $25,000 per month for the City of Norman. Costs for merchant processing fees are paid from the General Fund, Banking Service Charges (account 010-3025-415.47-50) and are partially recovered from customer convenience fee revenues recorded to the General Fund, Credit Card Convenience Fees (account 010-0000-348.15-60).
RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends awarding the contract to Paymentus Corporation and approval of Contract K-1920-72 between Paymentus Corporation and the City of Norman.